Maangchi's letter to you
Feel autumn with these flowers!
Gorgeous autumn flowers in the Conservatory Garden, located in the northeastern corner of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City! So beautiful!
New recipe: Spicy chicken skewers
One of the most popular Korean street foods is spicy chicken skewers (dak-kkochi in Korean). The red sweet spicy sauce is so versatile that you can use it in many different ways. If you are a vegetarian, how about using king oyster mushrooms instead of chicken?
New recipe: Dalgona with nuts
This simple dalgona cookie is fun to make! It tastes like a honeycomb toffee cookie. All you need is sugar, baking soda, and a few nuts (and the nuts are optional).
There's a behind the scenes story about the making of this recipe video. Are you ready to listen? : )
During my recent trip to the mountains, the house where I stayed had a fire pit, so I wanted to use it to show you something different. I decided on outdoor cooking with a little bit of the beauty of nature. A couple of days after I filmed this video, I browsed the Netflix channel in the house. I don't have Netflix at home, so I was interested in what the most popular show on Netflix was. "Squid Game" came up and it's all about Korea, so without knowing the story, I started watching the 1st episode. Then I had to keep watching more until early the next morning! I finished all the episodes in 2 nights!
In one of the episodes, they showed ppopgi, a kind of children's game played with pressed and imprinted dalgona candy. Actually I made a video about that years ago and the title of the video is "ppopgi." One recent comment on the video said, "Changing the title to dalgona will get you more subs!"
After my dalgona with nuts video was released, many people contacted me and left comments in the video. They said, "Oh, Maangchi, did you watch Squid Game?" "Squid game inspired to make this recipe?" ...etc. Now you know my answer, yeah?
Oisobagi (Spicy stuffed cucumber kimchi)
I found very good quality kirby cucumbers at the farmer's market. Once I saw the fresh, firm, dark green cucumbers, I knew what I would make for my dinner. Oisobagi is so easy and fast to make. Good ingredients always inspire me to make a certain dish!
A bouquet of homegrown soybean sprouts!
My reader iowaumma in Iowa is showing off her homegrown soy bean sprouts (kongnamul in Korean). I give her 2 Ps: 1 for Priceless and the other for Precious! : )
She says, "I can't believe this worked! I followed instructions by maangchi to grow my own bean sprouts. Soooo happy we can have fresh soybean sprouts."
Su's dalgona cookie!
Su sent me a message with this photo right after I posted the recipe video: "I had a craving for something sweet. I didn't have the right equipment to do it but it came out all right."
See? If you feel like something sweet but no candy or cookies are at home, you can make this in 2 minutes and calm down your craving!
My reader's Korean meal!
Genki prepared all these Korean dishes: bulgogi, kimchi, mung bean sprouts, stir-fried fishcake, spinach, danmuji, and rice! It looks so good with diverse small banchan. Yes, I'm proud of you too, @genki_garbage!
Nayko's Korean table with spicy soft tofu stew!
Nayko can make many Korean dishes and now she makes an awesome Korean table prepared according to her own mix and match rules. It looks great! Even the bowl of rice looks delicious.
Before and after: Kristen's 6 pounds kimchi!
Kristen Pirillo's juicy crispy homemade kimchi! She gave us such a cute story along with her stunning kimchi photo: "I accidentally spilled some fermented shrimp on my dog and she won't let me clean it off." Cute ~~ If it happens to me, I would say to the dog, "Please, you gotta let me clean off the smell. Otherwise, I'll have to put up with your pungent smell until your next bath time!"
Homemade fluffy bread
My reader travellersights made perfect loaves of bread! As I told you in the video, the pandemic didn't give me all bad things. At least one good thing was that I had to develop a recipe for white bread because my favorite bakery closed. I named it pandemic-ppang! : )
She said, "We got two decent sized loaves and they were truly soft and fluffy. I am not a pro bread maker, but this by far was the best bread I have made, and totally would make it again!"
Messages and comments
I'm touched and entertained every day by my readers' and viewers' comments on social media and my website. Here are some of their messages that I chose to share with you this month!
One of my fellow Koreans left this comment on my dalgona video. Yes, so many Koreans have warm memories about that candy!
Growing up in Korea, making dalgona was such a fun thing to do with friends in front of school supply stores. We would just squat in tiny plastic chairs/upside-down-basket and have fun making all kinds of Dalgona (also called "ppopgi"). Thanks for sharing, Maangchi!
Sometimes, my reader's comment gives me tears!
When I can't make a dish from the memories of my late mother, I open up your webpage and find the recipe.
How long have you been watching my videos and making Korean food?Crystal says she watched my videos with her little son and now he is a 20 year old man! How do I feel? I feel like they are my close friends or relatives. : )
I must have watched your channel for over a decade, my son was a little boy who used to watch next to me, he is 20 now.
My dakgangjeong (Sweet crunchy fried chicken) video is still so popular, more than 20 million views were reached! Aon vlog said her dakgangjeong was a big hit. Yaho! It makes me so happy!
Just tried this last Saturday with my mom and it turned out the talk of the town with our relatives, hahaha so delicious! 😋
Maya left a comment on my spicy garlic chicken (Kkanpunggi) video. I think I'm not the only one who thinks cooking is a good therapy for our healthy lives. Maya, I love you, too!
I recently had a miscarriage and was deeply depressed for months. Then I started cooking again since it has always been my passion and came back to your channel. I tried this recipe for my husband last week and he liked it so much that he asked me to make it for dinner the next day. I love your energy and the way you carry yourself and truth be told, it took a lot of inspiration and motivation from positive people like you to help me get over this difficult time.
Sometimes my new recipe goes so popular like a soaring rocket once I post it, but it doesn't always happen like that. Sometimes my new video is a little unpopular. But one of my less popular videos, flower pancakes (hwajeon), is loved very much by AZ! I was so happy to read this comment and I agree with all that she said.
It’s spring here so I picked some flowers and made these - oh my goodness! So simple but so delicious! The texture is just superb! Plus (as always) I shared with my son who was enchanted with eating flowers and he loved them too! Then I told him about how they’re made in spring in Korea and showed him Korea on a map so it turned into some fun home schooling too!
Since I'm running a cooking website, most of my readers and viewers are interested in not only Korean dishes but their own delicious dishes. Generally they are good at cooking. When I was reading Arera's message on my kimchi video, I felt like she was taking me to somewhere in the mountains in the north of Italy and showing me how to make polenta. After reading her message, I had to make polenta because I had all the ingredients at home. I'm learning from you and I'm inspired by you. How can I not love you?!
In the mountains in the north of Italy where I learned to cook, you are a good cook if you can make good polenta (like corn porridge but not always corn) - it's so important that there is often a big community event called a "polentata." It's traditionally made in a big pot that sits inside a wood burning stove, and after the main meal, you don't fuel the fire overnight and overnight it the leftover stuff in the pot becomes crunchy and delicious (when you get it out, it looks a bit like cornflakes), and whoever wakes up earliest the next morning gets the snack! In the rest of northern Italy, risotto is the basic dish for someone to be able to cook, especially risotto alla milanese. I love hearing about what the traditional way is in Korea - although the food is different, there is so much that's the same all over the world - everywhere, we have had to learn to preserve vegetables for winter, but we have found so many different and delicious ways to do it!
Made a big batch of beef radish soup!
It's getting colder, so I suggest you make beef and radish soup for fall. You can make a big batch, refrigerate it, and serve it over a few days.
I hope you all are well and I will see you next month on December 1st!